Former Jerry Brown, Jean Quan staffer running for Oakland council

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Anne Campbell Washington is photographed after she was appointed the new District 4 representative of the Oakland Unified School District on Wednesday, June 12, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group Archives)

OAKLAND — A former chief of staff to mayors Jean Quan and Jerry Brown has made it official that she is giving up her school board seat to run for Oakland City Council.

Anne Campbell Washington filed papers Monday to run in District 4, which includes a large swath of the affluent Oakland Hills.

She had been expected to run for the district’s school board seat that she was appointed to last year to replace Gary Yee, who became acting superintendent. But Campbell Washington, 43, recently told this paper that she felt compelled to enter the council race to succeed Libby Schaaf, who is running for mayor.

“We simply cannot wait any longer to build the safe, vibrant neighborhoods all Oaklanders deserve,” she said in a Tuesday news release announcing her candidacy.

Campbell Washington took over as Quan’s top policy adviser and government liaison shortly after the evictions of the Occupy Oakland encampments in late 2011. She left the post earlier this year. In addition to serving as Brown’s chief of staff during his second term, the UC Berkley Goldman School of Public Policy graduate also has worked as assistant to the city administrator and chief of staff to the fire department.

Campbell Washington is married to Glynn Washington, who hosts the NPR’s storytelling program “Snap Judgment” and briefly ran for mayor in 2005 before Ron Dellums entered the race. The couple has two children.

Campbell Washington touted endorsements from Yee, City Council President Pat Kernighan and school board President David Kakishiba in the Tuesday news release.

Also filing papers to succeed Schaaf are Jill Broadhurst, executive director of the East Bay Rental Housing Association, and Nicolas Heidorn, another former Brown aide whom the governor recently appointed special assistant to the secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency.

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